Centre for Emotional Health

Centre for Emotional Health

Centre for Emotional Health

Conducting research to further the understanding of emotional disorders and improving treatment, across the life span.

Centre for Emotional Health researchers concentrate on the understanding, treatment and prevention of anxiety, depression and related mental health problems. Internationally renowned for our research into anxiety, including several ‘world-first’ findings, we have a special focus on children and families but also conduct research that focuses on emotional disorders and wellbeing across the lifespan.

CEH is a Macquarie University Centre for Research Excellence established in 2007. It includes the Centre for Emotional Health Clinic, a practising research clinic.

The community is an integral part of our Centre. We welcome members of the public to our clinic and we collaborate with schools to improve the lives of children. Participation from the public is vital to many of our research projects.

Our focus is to always translate our research findings into practice.

Strategic research priorities

Mission: Scientific evaluation of the understanding and management of anxiety and other emotional health difficulties across the lifespan.

Vision: To build an emotionally healthy community through science and practice.

We have identified four key directions for our research from 2016 to 2018.

Mechanisms of emotional health

The world is moving rapidly in improving the understanding of genetic, biochemical, cognitive, behavioural and environmental factors underlying anxiety and related disorders like depression. Our goal is to develop an improved understanding of the factors that relate to, predict and influence emotional health across the lifespan.

Improving interventions

Our research strives to develop and evaluate treatments tailored to the individual rather than a one size fits all approach. This work is intertwined with understanding the mechanisms underlying anxiety and related disorders as well as understanding the mechanisms of change underlying treatment.

Translation, dissemination and implementation

Using knowledge from our research on mechanisms of emotional disorders, we develop and evaluate interventions designed to treat anxiety disorders and related difficulties. Our interventions are then made available to clients, families and health professionals, both within our clinic and broadly, by training health professionals around the world.

Ensure the high integrity of our services delivered in the community by developing an accreditation process for the dissemination of CEH resources

Endeavour to make the CEH clinic a sought-after resource in the community and a source of expert advice

Promotion and prevention

We will focus on improving the promotion of not only our research findings, but on improving the promotion of emotional health of the community. CEH currently conducts a number of prevention trials, both at the universal and targeted level, aimed at reducing the prevalence of anxiety and related disorders across the lifespan. Over the next few years, we will use this data to prepare and submit reports to the government, outlining the benefits of intervention and prevention programs for emotional health problems across the lifespan.

Strategic objectives

From 2016 to 2018, the CEH has six priority areas. We will:

Lead: Be a world-leader in emotional health research.

Collaborate: Be the collaborator of choice for emotional health research.

Mentor: Prepare world-ready HDR candidates and early career researchers in emotional health.

Translate: Deliver the highest quality, evidence-based service for the management of emotional health problems.

Train: Deliver specialised clinical and research training.

Communicate: Improve public knowledge about emotional health across the lifespan.